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Contents:
1. Seil Industries build dams in burma
2. Burma Privatisation: Obstacles
3. Nationalities Village

              Copyright 1994 The British
Broadcasting Corporation                          
 BBC Summary of World Broadcasts

                          October 19, 1994,
Wednesday
SECTION: Part 3 Asia - Pacific; Weekly Economic
Report; NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA; South korea;
FE/W0355/WD ; 
LENGTH: 53 words
HEADLINE: cooperation with other Asian countries;
Seil industries to participate in Burma power
plant construction
BODY:    Maeil Kyongje Sinmun, Seoul, in Korean 24
Sep 94 p 9

   Editorial report

   Seil Heavy Industries is to sign an agreement
near the end of September with the Burmese
government to participate in the construction of
four small hydroelectric power plants ranging from
400-to 6,000-kW-class, investing 80m dollars.

                         Copyright 1994 Reuters,
Limited                                 Reuters
World Service

                     October 19, 1994, Wednesday,
BC cycle
LENGTH: 663 words
HEADLINE: Burma privatisation could hit attitude
problem
BYLINE: By Tony Austin
DATELINE: RANGOON, Oct 19
BODY:    Six years after scrapping central
planning, Burma has started a broad policy of
privatisation which could include transferring the
key mining, minerals and agriculture sectors out
of state control.

   Diplomats and local businessmen say that
although the military government has attracted
some private capital from home and abroad,
attitudes harking back to the old command economy,
and some new problems, may hinder wider private
ownership.

   ''There is room for individuals but it is not
easy,'' one foreign diplomat said.

   Cinemas and small food-processing factories
were seen likely to be the next enterprises to
pass into private hands.  

   Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, Secretary One of
the ruling State Law and Order Restoration council
(SLORC), pledged ''systematic and proper''
privatisation in a policy statement this month
that was long on principle if short on detail.

   His audience included the ministers and top
officials of all the country's important economic
sectors - energy, mining, minerals, agriculture,
fisheries, transport and tourism.

   Diplomats contacted by Reuters said experiments
with private ownership had shown mixed results
since the military leaders formally ended more
than 26 years of self-imposed isolation on October
29, 1988, in favour of a market economy.

   Khin Nyunt said the new private sector should
act as a catalyst for foreign investment in Burma.

   Visitors are struck by the pace of construction
in Rangoon, the site of 16 out of 21 new hotel
projects, many of them joint ventures with
Singapore and Malaysian interests.

   Luxury-class rail travel between Myitkyina in
the north and Rangoon via Mandalay has been
privatised, the fisheries ministry has leased
boats and cold storage to private operators, and
some light industry is already in private hands.

   The Myanmar (Burma) Oil and Gas Enterprise is
working with Total of France and Unocal Corp of
the United States to supply natural gas worth $400
million to Thailand, and a number of Hong Kong
manufacturers are exporting textiles from Burma.

   ''Repatriation of profits occurs on a case by
case basis,'' said one diplomat. ''Oil
exploitation and minerals generate overseas
profits so the operators can take home their
share.''

   But these are the success stories. Away from
the public eye, local businessmen say, military
meddling in the fledgling free market continues
unchecked.

   Two examples concerned sea fishermen in the
Irrawaddy delta and coconut merchants in southern
Burma, who were ordered to sell direct to the army
or to military-connected firms at less than the
market rate.

   Strapped for cash to feed the country's huge
army, military authorities have started leaning on
merchants, rather than farmers, to keep rice
prices down, business sources said.

   ''There is still forced labour,'' according to
one businessman, who said peasants in some areas
had to work one week out of four to supply the
locally-quartered army troops.

   Diplomats variously listed the difficulties of
local entrepreneurs in obtaining credit, and
problems met by foreigners in realising their
profits, as the main obstacles to privatisation.

   ''Pepsico has to engage in counter-trade,
buying commodities like beans and then exporting
the commodities. This is very high in transaction
costs,'' one diplomat explained in the case of the
U.S. soft drink manufacturer.

   Another open question is the value of the kyat,
officially pegged at 5.8 to the dollar while the
same greenback fetches 113 kyat on the black
market.

   Diplomats said the exchange rate is further
complicated by the fact that the government
appears to be introducing a de facto devaluation
by purchasing some technical spares at around 100
kyat/dollar, the same rate used at a trade fair in
March.

   The kyat is confusingly denominated in units of 
, 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 45, 50, 90, 100 and 500, with
notes of 15,45 and 90 by far the most common. The
two-kyat coin in circulation is worth 150 kyat
alone for its metal content.                      
 Copyright 1994 Xinhua News Agency
The materials in the Xinhua file were compiled by
The Xinhua News Agency. These materials may not be
republished without the express written consent of
The Xinhua News Agency.
LENGTH: 119 words
HEADLINE: myanmar to set up nationalities village
DATELINE: yangon, october 18; ITEM NO: 1018087
BODY:    a myanmar nationalities village will be
established in yangon, the capital of myanmar to
attract more foreign tourists in "visit myanmar
year 1996", an official report said today.  the
plan was disclosed by myanmar state law and order
restoration council (slorc) first secretary
lieutenant-general khin nyunt at a meeting on
monday.  he urged participants of the meeting to
avoid the western way of attracting tourists and
instead to attract them with genuine cultural
traits of the myanmar people.  he also stressed
that private sector should play a greater role in
hotels and tourism industry during the visit
myanmar year.  some measures have been taken by